Photographing Flying DiscsBy Phil Kennedy

The Flying Disc Museum has established high standards of acceptance in order to maintain an accurate and consistent presentation of discs. As you can imagine, images that are blurry, pixilated, off-color, and lacking in detail would hamper our objective of being the ultimate go-to source for the identification of all flying discs. Carefully following our guidelines will give you the best shot at having your images accepted by our review committee.

The primary objective when photographing a flying disc is to clearly show as many of its important features as possible in order to distinguish it from its similar-looking cousins. Therefore, you must first assess its attributes and prioritize them from most important to least. If a disc has no label or hot stamp, then clear definition of physical structures such as raised lettering, ridges, rings, cupolas, etc. becomes paramount. When the only distinguishing feature of a disc that separates it from its brethren is its hot stamp or label, then that must take precedence over other features. However, it is still important to bring out as many details as possible while highlighting the most important.

The most important aspect of photography is lighting. Lighting can be broken down into:

1. Strength (strong to dim) 2. Direction (top, front, side, back) 3. Color (incandescent, fluorescent, daylight, etc.) 4. Type of source (point, broad, diffused) 5. Duration (constant, flash)

Different types of features require different types of lighting to best define them. Once you have decided which feature is most important, you must choose the lighting that best brings out that feature. In some cases, a combination of lighting is needed to bring out several different important features...physical structures and a label, for example.

NOTE: Do NOT under any circumstances use your camera’s flash as your light source! The light from a camera’s flash is aimed directly at the disc and will not produce detail-defining shadows; the disc will look flat and washed out. In addition, the light will be reflected back off shiny surfaces as a flare. Learn how to turn off your camera’s flash.

ABOUT AS BAD AS IT GETS! This photo suffers from:1. Dark exposure—the camera’s auto exposure

has been fooled by the white disc.2. Wrong colors—the camera’s white balance

setting didn’t match the color of the light source.3. Lack of physical details—caused by the straight-

on light source.4. Flare—On-camera flash reflected off label.5. Out of focus—either improper manual focus,

or auto-focus was turned off. This photo would never be accepted by the Flying Disc Museum!

KNOW YOUR CAPABILITIES

It’s important to know the capabilities and limitations of your camera. If you are using your cellphone’s built-in camera you must accept that your capacity to control its settings is severely limited unless you take some extra steps (see “Shooting with a Cellphone” below). If you have a more advanced DSLR, then you have the capability to take control of important exposure settings that will allow you to make superior images. The first step to becoming thoroughly familiar with your camera’s capabilities is to read its manual.

GETTING SET UP

If you have only one or two discs to shoot, you can often get away with a very simple setup. Even taking the disc outdoors, setting or leaning it on a plain card stock on a table in the sun can work for some discs. If you feel that might work for your disc, try it…if it doesn’t, then you will need to consider other options, discussed next.

If you have a large batch of discs to shoot, you should design a standard setup that you can either leave in place for a while, or easily reconstruct for future needs. The basic setup should cover the requirements of most of your discs and allow you to add or subtract lighting controls to enhance each disc’s most important distinguishing details.

The most easily designed setups consist of:

1. A flat surface (the ground, a tabletop, or the floor) 2. Paper, cloth, poster board, or a sheet of laminate (to cover the flat surface) 3. A single, point light source (light bulb, the sun) 4. A variety of reflectors (sheets of white poster board or Foamcore, etc.) 5. Blocks of wood to prop up discs and reflectors (clear acrylic works best for translucent discs) 6. A camera tripod (so you can leave the camera set up between shots and hold the camera still)

AN IMPORTANT NOTE

As you look at the images of discs already on display in the Museum you will see that they have been photographed in a wide variety of settings and conditions. All of these images have been accepted by our curators so they will serve as guides to emulate with your own photography. While there is no “one best way” to take photos of discs I will offer some setup suggestions for you to try to get started, along with tips on how to solve some of the more vexing problems you may encounter. At the Flying Disc Museum we encourage you to experiment and ask for advice.

SUGGESTED SETUPS

1. Probably the easiest way to construct a setup out of common materials, that is simple to replicate each session, offers flexibility of lighting control, and is easy on the back(!), is to use a tabletop or a 3´ x 4´ sheet of 1/2˝ plywood on sawhorses; prop up a sheet of plywood, Masonite, heavy poster board or Foamcore against heavy, stable supports; cover it with paper or cloth if necessary; attach a hanger device to the background and hang the disc. Illuminate the disc with a single light source (a bare bulb—one in a small housing will work) suspended 3´ to 4´ directly above so that the light skims across the disc and casts strong shadows to bring out structural features. (You use a single light source to avoid confusing multiple shadows.) Move the light forward and back until everything on the disc stands out evenly. Set the camera on a tripod in front of the table. Close window blinds, and dim or turn off room lights to avoid light contamination. To even out the light on the face of the disc, it often helps to prop sheets of white card stock off to the front/sides of the disc at a 45º angle (and out of the camera’s view) to reflect a little light onto the disc; but avoid using too much as that will weaken the form-defining shadows.

Shown above is a very simple and e�ective setup made from commonely available materials. A sheet of 1/2” plywoodwas set on two low sawhorses. A sheet of light gray laminate was clamped onto the front of the plywood, then curvedup in the back. In this example the top edge was clamped to a cross bar that was held up on both ends by �oor-to-ceilingextension poles; but you can attach it to a back wall instead. A single light bulb in a 7” re�ector was positioned over-head to allow the light to skiim across the disc, creating form-de�ning shadows. Note the re�ectors propped againstblocks of wood; the one on the left has a small white re�ector pinned to the block of wood to brighten the label, butnot the hot stamp (see discussion below under Hot Stamps).

Here’s another �exible setup made from about $10 worth of materials from a local Jo Ann Fabrics store. An Elmer’s Tri-Fold Display Board forms the back and side support. A curved sheet of heavy paper provides the photo background,and two pieces of Foamcore act as side re�ectors to illuminate foil details. A Fovitec 30 Watt Daylight Light Bulb (for Video & Photography—CFL, 90+ CRI, 5500K Full Spectrum) is housed in a narrow �xture on a pivoting extendable armattached to the wall about three feet above the disc. The discs are propped up from behind using painted 9 gauge wire formed to the size of the disc and secured to a wooden base. The result speaks for itself!

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2. You can achieve similar results by placing the background on the floor and shooting down on the disc. This will necessitate the tripod being set up over the disc and the light source being placed on the floor.

3. You can also use the sun as a point source, but you will then introduce variables (such as the strength, direction, and color of the sun) that will be nearly impossible to replicate each time…unless you live in the Sun Belt and shoot only at high noon! You can try the light from a single window, but try to avoid direct sunlight which will move between shots and can cast unwanted shadows from outdoors or window frames.

4. Since most natural light comes from above, position your light so it will strike the top edge of the disc between 10:00 and 2:00 to achieve a naturally pleasing look.

EXPOSURE CONTROL

If you are using a cellphone out of the box or simple point-and-shoot camera, you will have little or no control over the exposure—the manufacturers have them preset to try to give the best results under average situations. The built-in meters read the lighting conditions of the scene and establish the settings for shutter speed and color balance using the manufacturer’s proprietary algorithms. With this type of camera it may be more difficult to meet the Flying Disc Museum’s Standards of Acceptance. IMPORTANT! If you are using a cellphone, read the section below on “Shooting with a Cellphone”!

A DSLR camera will more easily offer personal control over exposure. These include:

1. Shutter speed—the length of time the shutter is open 2. Aperture control—the size of the lens opening, which affects… 3. Depth of field—what is in or out of focus in the picture 4. Color balance—Also known as white balance; to achieve accurate color

SHUTTER SPEED—You need to use a shutter speed that is fast enough to prevent a shaky image. This is especially important if you are attempting to hand hold the camera during the exposure. The general rule is to use a shutter speed that is equal to or shorter than the inverse of the lens length. For example, if you are using a 50mm lens, then you should use a shutter speed of 1/50 of a second or shorter. If you are using a tripod, you can leave the shutter open much longer, as long as the camera is not moved in any way. (For sharpest images during long exposures, if your camera has the capability, use the mirror lock-up feature and a shutter cord.)

APERTURE CONTROL—We require the entire disc to be in sharp focus. The easiest way to ensure this is to use a sufficient depth of field. The laws of optics dictate that the more open the lens is, the shallower is the depth of field (or depth of focus), and the inverse is also true. You would therefore assume that if you were to close the lens opening all the way down you will achieve the deepest depth of focus. However, additional laws of optics dictate that “unsharpening effects” (diffraction) occur towards the smallest lens openings. Each lens design has a “sweet spot” that is the best trade-off between a deeper depth of field and image sharpness. For most prosumer lenses the sweet spot is in the neighborhood of f/8.0–f/11.

MANAGING EXPOSURE—There are several ways to achieve proper exposure. If you are using a camera with auto controls, your choice is limited to controlling the amount (or brightness) of the light. You will need to dim, or more likely, brighten the light source until your camera will automatically select a fast enough shutter speed and a small enough lens opening to give you a good-looking image that is completely in focus. (The simplest point-and-shoot cameras, including most cell phones, have a fixed “sweet-spot” aperture, so shutter speed is their only variable.)

LOW ISO SETTING—Detail of an image shot with a DSLR set to ISO 100. The low number indicates that the sensor will be less sensitive to light but ensures that the sensor will be able to capture its maximum fine detail with virtually no apparent grain or digital noise.

HIGH ISO SETTING—Detail of an image shot with a DSLR set to ISO 6400. The high number indicates that the sensor will be highly sensitive to light, but means that the sensor will introduce apparent grain and digital noise.

If you are using a DSLR camera with full controls you have several choices.

1. You can use the “A” (Aperture) setting and set the aperture to f/8.0–f/11. You can then adjust the shutter speed until your camera’s viewfinder displays the appropriate shutter speed for the exposure.

2. You can use the “T” (Time) setting to set the shutter speed, and then adjust the lighting brightness until the viewfinder displays an aperture setting of f/8.0—f/11.

3. You can use the “M” (Manual) setting, set both the desired shutter speed and aperture, then adjust the brightness of the lighting to achieve a proper exposure. Any of these methods will work, but if adjusting the brightness of the lighting is difficult or impossible, then choose the first method (Aperture setting) and make sure to use a tripod if a longer shutter speed is required.

ISO SETTING—ISO is a measurement of how sensitive your camera’s sensor is to light. (In the old days you bought different films with different ASA or ISO values to use for various lighting conditions.) Today you can change the sensor’s sensitivity, but at a cost to image quality. The rule of thumb to keep in mind is the lower the ISO value (in a range of from 100 to over 10,000) the lower the sensitivity and the greater the quality. Higher ISO values introduce digital “noise” which shows up as both a “grainier” image and one that exhibits spurious color specks particularly noticeable in flat color areas. So you want to use the lowest ISO setting you can manage to achieve the “cleanest” image possible. But the sensitivity of the sensor is directly tied in with exposure control as discussed above. If you use a lower ISO setting you will need to allow the sensor to receive more light. You do this either by leaving the lens open longer (slower shutter speed) or opening the lens up with a smaller f/stop. Since we want to try to keep the lens opening at or near its “sweet spot” (see Focus above) the best way is to use a longer shutter speed. If you are using a tripod (as you should) this will be no problem.

BRACKETING—You will need to do some experimenting at first, and the best way is to “bracket” your test exposures, then analyze them on your computer screen, before determining the best exposure settings.

In the past camera meters were calibrated to 17% reflective gray cards (matching the average tonal values of average scenes). To some extent that’s still true, although modern built-in meters take into account the whole

-1.0 f/stop -0.5 f/stop Correct Exposure +0.5 f/stop +1.0 f/stop

scene (using various schemes) rather than just the center of the scene. But if most of the scene is taken up by one object (say a white disc), the meter will set the exposure to make that white disc match a 17% gray card. That’s why your white discs will appear darker than they do in real life. What you need to do is “fake out” the meter by setting your exposure control to, in effect, overexpose the image…making everything lighter. Most DSLR cameras will have an exposure control setting. Use that to step up towards the overexposure side until you get an image that looks right compared to the actual disc. That should work fine for all similarly tone-valued discs, but if you switch to discs that have other tonal values, you will have to try different exposure settings. Likely that will be less overexposure because white discs are the lightest and require the most overexposure. Once you think you have the correct exposure, try bracketing one full f/stop on either side in 1/2 f/stops. That way you will wind up with 5 shots; pick the best, then use that setting for any similar discs. During the final shooting you should still bracket each disc ± 1/2 stop, just to make sure.

COLOR BALANCE—Also known to your camera as “White Balance.” Most cameras have standard settings designed to match the colors of typical scenes such as indoor, landscape, sunny days, cloudy days, flash, etc. Those work fairly well as long as the color temperature of your scene is close to what the camera’s manufacturer set as “average conditions.” Where things can go wrong are cases like “indoors.” Today there are all sorts of “indoor” lights producing all sorts of color temperatures (measured in degrees Kelvin or ºK) of light ranging from 2700ºK up to 5000ºK. (5000ºK is actually considered average daylight, but you can get lights with this temperature for indoor use, too. Actually, outdoor lighting can vary from 2500ºK at sunset to over 25,000ºK on clear, blue-sky days.) Since white light contains all colors of the spectrum, if you can get white objects in your scene looking good then most other colors will look right as well. If you’re having trouble with your white discs not looking white, then your camera’s white balance may be off. But light reflected off nearby colored objects can pollute a disc’s color as well.

The best way for most people to balance their camera settings to the scene is to know what the actual color temperature of the light source is and then set their camera’s white balance to as close a match to that as they can. For example, if you have a 5000ºK “daylight bulb” then use an outdoor “daylight” setting even though you’re indoors! If you can more accurately determine the color temperature of the light source, then you can set the camera to that in ºK using the manual “K” setting.

There’s a temptation to use the “Auto White Balance” (AWB) setting, but the problem with that is if you have, say, a yellow disc filling up the view finder, the camera will be looking for something white in the scene to set its white balance, not find any, and the yellow will end up off color. One trick around that is to cut out a page from a magazine which contains pictures with a wide range of colors, plus black type on a white background. Hold it directly against the front of the disc you’re shooting, hold the shutter button half-way down (which sets the exposure & white balance), pull the card out of the way, and then push the shutter down all the way to take the shot. If you can’t hold the page directly in front of the disc, you will need to turn off the camera’s auto-focus and manually focus on the disc first or the camera will focus on the page, resulting in the disc being out of focus.

Daylight (on a cloudy day) with camera set to indoor light.

Daylight (on a cloudy day) with camera set to auto white balance.

Daylight (on a sunny day) with camera set to auto white balance.

Setting exposure value, color balance, and focus with a magazine page.

Incandescent light (2800ºK) with camera set to daylight (5000ºK)

Incandescent light (2800ºK) with camera set to indoor (2800ºK)

Poor Depth of Field (or Focus)

FOCUSING—If you are shooting a subject that has a bit of depth—say a disc at an angle or set of discs in a box—manually focus by aiming 1/3 of the way from the front to the back of the subject, and then, if necessary, move the camera to reframe the subject. If you are using a camera’s auto focus, aim as above, hold the shutter button halfway way down to set the focus, move the camera to reframe the subject, then push the shutter button all the way down to take the picture.

SHOOTING WITH A CELLPHONEShooting great images of flying discs with stock cellphones can be challenging due to the inherent limitations of the built-in cameras. Different brands will differ in their features and controls so the first step is to get familiar with your own phone’s capabilities…especially some of the features you may not know it had! Beyond what apps come installed in the phone, there are quite a number of free or low-cost third-party apps that can add many capabilities found on most DSLRs. You likely will need those capabilities to address several of the situations already discussed above. Since I am most familiar with the iPhone I will explain its use, but similar procedures and apps are available for the Android platform.

FOCUS—Tap the screen where you want to set the focus and a yellow box will appear indicating your focal point. As previously discussed, if your subject has some depth (for example, if your disc is at an angle, or you’re shooting packaging), you will want to focus about 1/3 of the way from the closest edge to the camera to the furthest edge from the camera. You may not need to, but if you wish to lock the focus, just tap and hold for a couple of seconds and a yellow banner will appear at the top o the screen. To unlock, tap anywhere on the screen.

EXPOSURE—Once you’ve set the focus you need to ensure a correct exposure. When you use the built-in app to set your focus the area within the yellow box should also be correctly exposed for most normal situations. However as discussed above, the camera’s built-in meter can easily be fooled when attempt-ing to analyze a disc filling the frame. Look to the right of the yellow focus box and you will see a small yellow sun icon. Simply swipe up on the screen to increase (brighten) the image, or down to decrease (darken) the image until it matches your subject’s brightness level. For example a white disc should appear crisp and bright, not a muddy gray. If you choose to install a third-party app such as the highly recommended Camera+ you may be able to achieve greater fine-tune control over exposure because the app allows you to pick the exposure point separately from the focus point.

SHUTTER SPEED—You can not adjust the shutter speed using the iPhone’s native app, but you can with an app like Camera+. If you are using a tripod (and you should) and have sufficient light, you should not need to be concerned with changing the shutter speed. However, if you are attempting to hand hold the camera under lower light conditions, you may need to increase the shutter speed to avoid shaky images.

ISO SETTING—Again, you will need an app like Camera+ to be able to adjust the ISO setting. As discussed in the ISO section above, it is important not to set the ISO too high or you will degrade the image by introducing resolution-lowering grain and color noise.

DEPTH OF FIELD—A major drawback to shooting with a cellphone is that the aperture (opening) of the lens is fixed. That works for most scenes since the lens’s depth of field is relatively deep. Unless you’re shooting a large package at an angle you should find the depth of field will allow your discs to be in sufficient focus as long as you follow the focusing instructions above.

WHITE BALANCE—For all of the reasons discussed in the Color Balance section above, chances are you will not get your images to match the true colors of the discs. Once again, an app such as Camera+ allows you to manually take over the task of adjusting your camera’s white balance to match your own lighting conditions.

FRAMING AND ZOOMING—One word about using the camera’s built-in zoom function—DON’T! Since the camera’s lens has a fixed focal length, it can’t zoom in and out like a true zoom lens for a DSLR does. Rather a cellphone’s camera performs a “digital zoom”…basically cropping and capturing only the zoomed portion of the scene, losing all of the pixels outside of the cropped area in the process. You end up with a lower resolution image with resulting loss of detail and sharpness. The proper pro-cedure is to leave the camera’s zoom in its normal position and move your camera (on its tripod, right?) closer or farther from your subject until the image is correctly framed before snapping the picture. If you later decide the framing is a bit off, it’s better to do a little cropping in a third party program. Yes, you still will degrade the image slightly, but you will always have the original full image to fall back on.

DIGITAL ZOOM—The zoom function on a cellphone merely enlarges the pixels of whatever area is chosen creating poor image quality due to lower effective resolution.

TRUE ZOOM—A zoom lens used on a DSLR is designed to change the focal length of the lens by moving its internal lens elements, thus preserving the camera’s resolution.

CELLPHONE CROPPING—Cropping a cellphone image at some later point may produce slightly better results than zooming but still lowers the effective resolution.

DSLR CROPPING—Cropping an image from a DSLR at some later point generally produces results similar to zooming because of the inherently cleaner and higher resolving capability of DSLR lenses and sensors.

Left—The foil sticker is dark because it is reflect-ing the darkened room.

Right—The foil sticker is now bright because a white card was placed strategically at the “angle of reflectance” so that the main overhead light was reflected off the card into the label and then into the lens. (See photo of basic setup above.)

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

PHYSICAL STRUCTURES—As stated above, you will want to show the structures of a disc above all else. That include overall shape, materials, thickness, flight plate contours, ridges, raised lettering, cupolas, etc. Relatively hard lighting is usually most effective in defining structure. Some unusual shapes or materials, such as foam or fabrics, may require experimentation with more diffused light sources, lighting reflectors, or additional light sources to achieve best results. As a general rule shooting a disc from a bit off to the side will show a disc’s structural detail better than positioning it straight on to the camera.

HOT STAMPS—This term is used generically to include all graphics applied to a disc’s surface, whether silkscreened, foil, dye-sub printed, etc. Generally, most imprints don’t require special lighting, with the exception of foil. Shiny foil is basically a mirrored surface. As such it will reflect whatever lies beyond its “angle of reflection,” (also known as angle of incidence). Imagine viewing a hot stamped disc from 30º off to the side of straight on. The hot stamp surface will reflect whatever is positioned 30º to the other side of the disc. If you were to move 60º to the side, then whatever is being reflected would now be 60º to the other side. This is another reason why shooting a disc from slightly off to the side is desirable because if you shoot a foil disc straight on YOU & YOUR CAMERA will be what is reflected! In most cases you do not want to reflect the dark room because that will turn your beautiful gold hot stamp a muddy black. If you are outside shooting under a blue sky, you will reflect that blue sky. For multi-color foil hot stamps a white card, carefully positioned opposite the camera’s angle of reflection, and large enough to cover the entire hot stamp design, will do nicely. For ultimate beauty of a single-color design you can use a card of the same color as the design, i.e. a yellow card for a gold hot stamp. NOTE: One of the more difficult situations is shooting a black disc with a foil hot stamp, because the shiny black plastic also functions as a reflective surface. Try moving the reflector back to lessen its effect on the plastic while allowing it to brighten the foil.

TRANSLUCENT AND CLEAR PLASTIC—Discs that are translucent (semi-clear), such as most of the NAS discs, can effectively be shot against a light gray or white background to maintain an accurate color of the plastic. Using a color will tend to “pollute” the plastic because the color will show through slightly from behind the disc: the stronger the color, the greater the effect. If you are using a device to prop up the disc, try making one out of clear acrylic plastic. Truly clear plastic discs present the same vexing problems as shooting glass objects: whatever is behind them is seen “clearly” through the disc. For those discs their “clear-ness” is an important feature to highlight. Some experimentation will be needed based on what you have available, but backgrounds with a discernible, non-obtrusive texture—like fine-grained wood or burlap for example—often will give pleasing results.

Right—A useful trick is to shoot packages outdoors on “a completely overcast day. The cloudy sky will serve as a giant photographer’s softbox, giving even light and reflections off shrink-wrapped surfaces.

BACKGROUND COLOR— There is no firm rule dictating the color of the background to use other than that it should complement a disc rather than vie for attention. In general a color or tonal value that offers some relief or contrast works best. Thus a white disc against a dark color or black looks great, while a dark blue or black disc will stand out from a pale color, light gray, or white background. A dark disc CAN look good against a darker background IF you apply enough appropriate rim lighting to prevent the disc from “disappearing” into the background.

If you have the proper software and expertise to use it, the way to achieve ultimate flexibility of optimally lighting a disc and wedding it to a dramatic background is to light and shoot a disc without regard to the background, silhouette it in postproduction with a program such as Photoshop, and then drop it against any creative manufactured background desired such as a dark-to-light gradient. A shadow can also be created digitally for a dramatic, eye-popping effect.

PACKAGING—Discs still in their packages are generally best shot under a broader, more diffused light source. Indoors this can be accomplished using general room lighting as long as several lights are not aimed directly at the package producing multiple shadows. Another way is to aim a bright light upwards at a white ceiling above the package to produce an overall soft bounced light source. In that case an additional broad light aimed at the package can be used to create shape-defining shadows. Keep an eye on any reflections off of shrink-wrapping: they help to see the condition of the wrap, but you want as much as you can of the disc and liner to show as clearly as possible.

DIGITAL FILE REQUIREMENTS

All images must be submitted digitally (no prints or film). Files should be in native RGB format and (unless you really know what you’re doing) should not be resized, or altered using software. In most cases, cameras will be set to produce pre-sharpened JPEG images by default. Check the actual size of your files: they should be in the range of 1–3MB for submission. If they are smaller than that, find out how to reset your camera’s output to a high enough “quality setting” to output files of the required size. If you take images in TIFF or RAW format, you will need to produce final files as RGB JPEGs. Refrain from overly sharpening images to avoid a “crunchy” look.

IN CONCLUSION

While this crash course in photography may seem daunting at first, hang in there. It’s like learning to throw a new disc…experimentation and practice make perfect. Learning and applying these basic techniques will produce better results and reward you with more of your images being accepted for display in the Flying Disc Museum!